What are your pet peeves re English usage?

JTT...Sorry I missed all of your useful comments until tonight. Mr. glitterbag and I took a long drive around Davidsonville and other few remaining "untouched by developers" areas here around Annapolis. We ran our dogs at the dog park and later had dinner at the Ram's Head Roadhouse on Generals Highway not far from where we live. Actually, we didn't exactly have a chance to eat, because when our entrees arrived, I felt a little light-headed and then passed out briefly. Had an irregular heartbeat and tightness in the chest and throat....next thing you know I'm heading off to the Emergency Room with a nitro tablet under my tongue while the para-medic hooked me up to an EKG and hooked me up to an IV drip.

We were in the ER from 8:30 P.M. until 2 A.M and luckily it wasn't a heart attack but a seriously low potassium level. So I am very happy to be here and not still in the hospital. All of this has made me think, what to do what to do about whiney ol JTT and this insistance on what can or can't be a "peeve". So here's what I think.....you continue to make absurd claims and accuse others of not being willing to do any heavy lifting to engage you further......in other words, you have become a broken record. (I hope that reference is not too obscure for you, or too low brow for your obvious sense of intellectual and analytical acumen. Having raised boys, I know a tantrum when I see one. When one of my boys threated to hold his breath until he turned blue, my answer was "Wait a minute, let me time you and see if you can break the record."

Honestly, if you had worked for me or had been my student, I wold be willing to invest some time.....but you are not my responsibility, not someone I am mentoring (that funny if you think about it, I can't imagine you respect anyone enough to have ever actually had a mentor). It's clear (sic) that you think you are on to something, but if I continue to engage you it would simply become patronizing on my part, and I don't enjoy doing that to anyone even someone I think is as mistaken as you are.

P.S. I offered the Webster's 7th new collegiate and Random House but forgot to mention the Websters Unabridged Dictionary. In my professional capacity I would have been considered a light weight if I used some online dictionary when every reference book in the world was within reach.

I'm glad to hear that you're ok.

Please don't go, you own JTT glitterbag.

And JTT please respect the rules of decorum.

Thank you tea.....I'm not leaving the forum, I'm just not going to validate some nutty notions as to what can or cannot be a "peeve". I began working in a male dominate agency many years ago, and if I did learn how to deal with strong opinions or bully tactics I would have had to hang up my saddle. In the early 90's I had a Branch office with 46 people divided into 5 different teams. On one team I had 4 Air Force personnel and 3 Marines. I have a special place in my heart for the military and Marines are fun and challenging to work with. The folks were Marine Intelligence Specialists with different skills. My favorite part was that the Marines thought that they were not only the toughest guys around, but the smartest guys as well. That is not meant to be disrespectful, it just made life interesting because when you are the boss somebody is always trying to prove they are smarter, and young male marines are always looking for the soft underbelly. The rest of the 46 were mostly Air Force with only about 8 or 9 civilians, not counting me.

I like to think I was pretty sharp when I started my career, but there is something that comes with years of experience that makes life more enjoyable, difficulties more easily dealt with, and the self-asurance that it's OK not to be the expert on everything.

So, dealing with inflated egos is not unfamiliar to me, it's just sometimes you have to remind the children that its time for the adults to talk, and we will entertain no more twaddle or piffle.

That seems to have calmed things down for a bit.

We should perhaps remember that a thread for "pet peeves" is fairly lighhearted in its aims, and is intended for a bit of fun.

My peeve of today, is TV and radio interviewers saying to their interviewees, "thanks for your time".
I don't know why, but that irritates the heck out of me.

It does me a little bit too Mac.

They should be thanking us for listening to them spout and getting the expenses and the preen. They probably get £100 for it. 30 seconds of trite shite we already know. It's corrupt. Media is all corrupt. That's why it screams about others. It diverts attention.

Hey--that glitterbag fancies herself what ? Are smelling salts too cheap and common these days?

"Untouched by developers" eh? Fancy driving around Annapoplis where it is untouched by developers. That's really posh don't you think? I wonder what Big Chief Sitting Bull would have said. He would have scratched his wise old head at the mention of dog parks and emergency rooms I should have thought.

oolongteasup wrote:

That 's not saying much.
His mind is hopelessly disorganized.
He rejects logic and worships chaos.


That he has the ability to comply is questionable.
Its easier just to put him on Ignore, as I did.





David

McTag wrote:

Fun is always good. I 'm a hedonist.
This thread also offers an opportunity
to point out errors of reasoning,
in the hope that their identification
will in some measure (however small or large) cause them
to be alleviated by those who wish to be logical.





McTag wrote:
That 's a surprize. Since u r the person who is irritated,
u shoud know Y.
Perhaps this ignorance results from insufficient analysis?





David

spendius wrote:

In America, thay ofen thank us for listening or for watching,
as if receiving those thanx were of any value.

What good do thanx do anyone?

One fellow (whom I deem mentally unstable) loudly complained
for my failure to thank him for asking how I am (or was).
That is irrational.






spendius wrote:

That is a plural word, Spendius, whose singular is medium.
Saying "Media r corrupt" woud be better.


spendius wrote:
Shoud wisdom move us to end the existence of dog parks and of emergency rooms, Spendius ?





David

Shouldn't that be "mediom", O master logicican?

Check any number of dictionaries, Sig and you'll find out that you're wrong. What else is new?

Once more, just because you're thick as a brick. Languages borrow words; they do NOT borrow rules. Follow this bit of logic; you don't know the rules for all languages so words that come into your language, I believe for you, it's English, follow the rules of English.

slavish adherence to "rules" makes for boring reading.

Well effemm- when I'm reading I slavishly adhere to a number of rules.

I sit comfortably always. You never see me reading anywhere else but on a sofa or a recliner in the lean-to with glass walls. I insist on a good light. A nearby table complete with smoking requisites, working pen and notepaper. As soon as I notice that I have to read the last sentence again I put the book down, lean back and close my eyes to rest them. I never fight it. That's why Proust is great for insomnia. He wrote it to be. He was an artistic medicine man. First Class. Never read Proust in a book you have to hold open. It is years since I did that.

I am so impressed with Moby Dick that I'm reading Redburn in a paperback that has to be held hard open.

The Penguin English Library--bookbinders to the Company of All-in Wrestlers and Weightlifters. But it's good enough for me to break that rule.

Tea and biscuits about hourly.

What sort of other rules are there?

Imagine saying "Media are corrupt." It's ridiculous.

I think Dave has a bit of a thing about breaking rules. Only little ones mind you. Nothing to justify getting a posse up.

Judging from that Dave my post must have gone by you a little too fast for you to have seen anything but a blurr or heard anything more that a whoosh.

Posse is a word of interesting etymology. So's pussy, of course.

It is? I'll have to stop saying it that way, I guess.

media is like data, its plural, but so what?

I'm not so sure the "media" can be corrupt, because it's the form of communication. Maybe the owners, reporters and news people can be corrupt, but I'm not sure the media can be corrupt.

I'll have to stop saying 'all the data are not yet in' also, I guess.

As usual, Tak, you are the lone voice of reason here. Quite right -- the media themselves cannot be corrupt. But, as farmerman said, so what?

That's the point effemm. If it's plural it hardly means anything.